Adoption challenges for children and carers

What a refreshing change to read Anthony Douglas's article (There is no right to adopt, 23 December). I had begun to despair that the needs and the complexities of those very vulnerable children for whom adoption is the care plan would be ignored in the rush to speed up the adoption assessment process. Having managed an adoption team for several years, and now working in adoption support, I am increasingly aware of the issues facing adoptive parents – and the recognition that love alone and the wish to parent children is rarely enough to enable families to meet the needs of the children being placed for adoption.

Many children will have been affected by pre-natal alcohol and/or drugs or by significant neglect or abuse. We now know that their physical brain development is likely to have been affected by such trauma and therefore their parents will need even more resilience, creativity, parenting skills and support networks than those of us whose children were born to us – and that is why the assessment process must be one which is sensitive, thorough and effective. I agree that there should be no unnecessary delays – and would suggest that such delays are more likely due to poor management or lack of resources than to the adoption assessment framework – but it cannot be rushed. My hope is that Anthony Douglas's perceptive views, based on his working knowledge of the adoption process in its entirety as well as his personal experience, are heard in Whitehall.Hilary F ThomasUlverston, Cumbria

• It has been good to see the spotlight on the rotten state of adoption in the UK (Adoption plan meets with open arms, 23 December). The fact that so many children are in effect further abused by a care system that clearly does not serve their need to have a permanent and loving family of their own should by now come as a surprise to no one.

Much has been made in the media of the prospective adoptive parents turned away or deterred by the UK process. Martin Narey talks of those who have "gone to extraordinary lengths" to adopt from abroad as a result. Indeed I am such an adopter myself. However, people do not only adopt from abroad as a last resort. I believe that when there are hundreds of thousands of children living in institutions without their own families, who will never be found families in their own countries, there is a strong justification, imperative even, for those who can adopt them to do so.

The Hague convention has been signed and ratified by the UK to oversee the proper and ethical adoption of these children. And yet we have one of the lowest rates of inter-country adoption – if not the lowest – in the western world. If we wish to serve the best interests of children the world over – and I don't see why British citizens should be any less compassionate than those in the US, Spain or France for example where intercountry adoption rates are significantly higher – then we need an adoption process that supports all forms of adoption – domestic or international.Siobhan FlynnBristol

• Mark Johnson presents an excellent analysis as to why David Cameron's plans to tackle England's "most troubled" 120,000 families are likely to fail ('Another day, another social worker', Society, 21 December). It is, though, very unfortunate that he trots out one of the most erroneous – and indeed ironic – misconceptions concerning contemporary social work, when he states that families are "familiar with the punitive nature of existing systems" whereby their children could be taken away. On the contrary – and as the case of baby Peter Connelly, among many, so terribly revealed – social workers are very reluctant to take children away from their parents. Social workers, backed up by the rest of society, should, in fact, be more ready to remove children and place them in the care system – albeit a much better supported one. Indeed, Johnson indirectly acknowledges this when he argues that "some families cannot be repaired". This is a nettle that most of society still needs to grasp.Dr Bernard GallagherCentre for Applied Childhood Studies, University of Huddersfield

• Your article (Children put at risk by shortage of foster families, 20 December) misses a key point about the importance of caring for children within their own kinship networks. Research into child welfare indicates that, for those children who can no longer live at home with their birth parents, the option of being brought up full-time by a relative or friend – or in kinship care, as it is known – is one that offers at least as good outcomes as other arrangements.

It is also the living arrangement that children tend to prefer to being moved away. The added bonus of a kinship care arrangement is that there is continuity of family, friends and education for the child. Of course kinship care, as with foster care or adoption, is not suitable for every child and a full assessment of appropriate options needs to be made.

One of the UK's key research studies, Kith and Kin: Kinship Care for Vulnerable Young People, noted how kinship carers are often "invisible" in policy terms – there is a lack of transparent local authority policies and service entitlements. Why shouldn't full-time kinship carers for children receive the same levels of payments, allowances and services as foster carers or other full-time carers? After all, the children's needs are the same.Professor Bob BroadWeeks Centre for Social Policy Research, London South Bank University